Blue Thunder?
by GryffinMiraur
Summary: Kuno can't really be that clueless, can he?


  
Disclaimer: All the characters of Ranma 1/2 belong to Rumiko Takahashi and I am not making any money off of this. I'm a poor college student. 

Flames will be sent to anyone wishing to practice Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken in the most painful way, but constructive C&C would be appreciated. It's my first fic so be gentle.   
~GryffinMiraur   
llk17@columbia.edu 

Without further ado . . . 

Blue Thunder? 

Tatewaki Kuno was happy. He had several reasons for being happy.   
1. He was of the house of Kuno which not only meant that he had more money than he knew what to do with but also that he came of a noble family.   
2. He hadn't seen his father in several days.   
3. He was on his way to see Akane Tendo and the pigtailed girl.   
4. He was going to invite them on vacation. They would accept of course.   
Kuno burst into the Tendo household displaying his usual enthusiasm and ignoring Nabiki's dry "Hey, Kuno-baby".   
"I, Tatewaki Kuno, have the long awaited news that our family's hotsprings house is now in order and I would invite Akane Tendo and the pigtailed girl to be among the first to enjoy it."   
"Oh, I'd love to" said Nabiki.   
"Rich boy for real?" said Shampoo appearing from nowhere. AN: Oh, come on, of course they're all going to go. I don't think any more dialogue on that score is necessary.>   
At the hotsprings, everyone luxuriated in the waters except for Kuno who tended to stand underneath the only cold waterfall in the area. He claimed it made him more manly or something like that.   
"A true samurai can withstand any cold. I have only bathed in cold water since the age of seven." explained Kuno.   
Ranma rolled his eyes. Typical Kuno.   
"Man," he commented, "you'd think he'd gone on a steady diet of Akane's cooking."   
WHAM! And Ranma went flying courtesy of Akane Tendo Airlines, which if you thought about it, was actually a lot more efficient than many other airlines.   
Still, the vacation was quite enjoyable. Ranma and Ryoga threw each other in springs. Shampoo was obnoxious to Mousse and continuously glomped Ranma. Ukyo discovered a new okonamiyaki recipe. Akane hit Ranma a lot and Kuno annoyed everybody. Nabiki kept making a profit off Kuno and, well, life was pretty normal and as peaceful as it could possibly get. Which meant of course that something weird was overdue to happen.   
Tatewaki Kuno was going to free his pigtailed girl once and for all from the vile clutches of that sorcerer Saotome. He climbed a tree that was a spring or two away from one where Ranma was and began creeping along the branches hoping to take Ranma by surprise. Nabiki, seeing a way to make money off both Ranma and Kuno, followed him but not up the tree that is. She wouldn't deign to do something like that unless there was a lot more money in it.   
"Hey, Kuno-baby!" she said loudly.   
Kuno started in surprise. And lost his balance.   
"Curse you, Nabiki Tendo" he yelled as he fell from the tree, and, as so often happens in the Ranmaverse, landed with a splash.   
He bobbed to the surface of the hotspring and got his balance in the spring. But there was a very strange expression on his face. He glanced down at himself and Nabiki watched a myriad of expressions cross his face. Bemusement, confusion, and . . .horror?   
Kuno raised his hands to his head and took a deep breath.   
"What the hell am I wearing?!"   
Nabiki blinked. That was not at all what she had expected. But she rose to the occasion.   
"I don't know, Kuno-baby but for an extra 100¥, I'll throw in some samurai underwear."   
Kuno gave Nabiki a look that she knew she had given him before. It was infinitely strange to see Kuno looking like that.   
He climbed out of the spring. Nabiki took in the view with some appreciation because whatever else Kuno might have been, he was pretty easy on the eyes.   
"I think I should change" he commented and walked back to the house.   
Once inside, he dashed up the stairs to his room. I have to get out of this idiotic outfit. What on earth was I thinking? I look like something out of a bad samurai film.   
Kuno searched frantically through his clothing until he found something that was not like what he was wearing. Didn't I ever wear anything normal?No, I didn't.   
He turned to his mirror and looked in it. He had seen himself many a time before, but somehow, he looked different. He felt different too. His head felt infinitely clearer and he somehow felt much more like himself although it was a completely different self. The hot water must have had something to do with it. Hot water! There was something . . .somewhere.   
Kuno began to sort rapidly through the books in the bookshelf. There had to be something in one of them.   
"Not here. . .not here . . .not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. notherenotherenothere" he was flinging books at almost the speed of a Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken.   
Ranma, who was walking by, rubbing his head after being on the receiving end of Akane's annnoyance, narrowly dodged the unabridged OED that was flung directly at his head. He looked at Kuno's surprisingly normally dressed back and surprisingly unusual behavior.   
"Whatcha lookin' for?" Ranma asked, curiously.   
"There's an old Chinese legend about some really odd springs, J-something, Jus-"   
"Jusenkyo?"   
"Yes! That's it! Thanks, Ranma!" Kuno snapped his fingers. "Curses triggered with hot and cold water."   
He considered this.   
"You could make a good profit off one of those curses"   
"I think I'm going to . . .go . . .downstairs now" said Ranma backing slowly out of the room. Kuno had thanked him. Kuno hadn't called him a foul sorceror or tried to fight him. Kuno had mentioned money in a bit of a Nabiki like way. There was something seriously wrong.   
Kuno, for his part, was doing something new. He was thinking. And what's more, he was doing it well. If you listened closely, you could perhaps hear a series of clicks in Kuno's mind. And along with the clicks grew very very serious embarrassment as was visible in the red that spread over his face until he could take it no more.   
"Oh God! I've been an idiot for TEN years" he cried sinking to his knees displaying that he was still rather melodramatic.   
"Has it really been that a short a time?" remarked Nabiki, "Kasumi says it's time for dinner, come on."   
Kuno got up and walked down the stairs, practically cringing at each step. He was going to have to explain and apologize and a whole lot of other stuff and they'd probably think he was nuts, but they thtought that anyway, so what the hell?   
He scanned the room; Ryoga check, Ukyo check, Shampoo check, Kasumi check, Nabiki check, Mousse check, Cologne check, Happosai check, Soun check, Genma check, Akane check, pigtailed-no wait, Ranma, check.   
Without saying anything, Kuno got up, disappeared and returned with a kettle of hot water which he handed to Ranma.   
"Here. Sorry."   
Ranma looked suspiciously at the kettle.   
"What's wrong with it?" she asked.   
"Ranma, you dolt! Don't you realize what this means?" snapped Akane.   
And it hit her. There was nothing wrong with the water. Kuno wouldn't bring his pigtailed goddess hot water for no reason at all unless he knew that -   
"Jusenkyo, huh?" said Kuno.   
Everyone facefaulted.   
"I TOLD you" said Ranma indignantly pouring the water over his head, "Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?"   
"I think," said Nabiki sounding pissed off, "that I am going to be losing half my profits off you, Kuno-baby and I want to know why. So tell me what the hell is going on?!"   
"Well, I'm not exactly sure," answered Kuno "but I have a vague idea."   
"That sentence made sense" commented Ukyo, "Now I know hell has frozen over"   
Kuno glared. "Do you want to know or not? . . .I was about seven and. . ."   


~flashback~Tatchi skipped along happily with his father. China was so neat! It had beautiful landscapes and the people talked like waterfalls. Someday, Tatchi would learn to speak like that. He would learn everything of course but most importantly, he would be a really good martial artist and a millionaire or someone really rich. Father said that in order to be a good businessman you had to be a good martial artist because then you could sense what the other person might do, He also said that if you were going to do martial arts, you had to start young. That was why they were on this trip to China in the first place.   
"OK, Tatchi, here we are"   
Tatchi looked around. There were lots of pools with sticks in the middle of them. He guessed you climbed up on them to practice balance, and they must be pretty safe because they were in water. That meant that if you fell, you would just hit water which didn't hurt unless you did a bellyflop which usually only happened when you were trying to dive.   
"I'm going to learn how to balance, aren't I father?"   
"That's right, Tatchi. I'm going to put you on one of these poles and we'll see how long you can balance."   
Father lifted him up onto a pole as a Chinese man rushed out of a nearby hut.   
"Oh, no, no sir, stop, very tragic story, stay away from these springs"   
But it was too late. Tatchi lost his balance and fell with a splash. ~end flashback~   


Kuno clenched his teeth. "It was the Spring of Drowned Shakespeare-spouting Idiot Samurai."   
Everybody burst out laughing and rolled around on the floor for a little while.   
"Well, heheh," gasped Ukyo, "that explains a lot."   
"So," said Ranma picking up a glass of cold water pouring some over himself and splashing Kuno with the rest of it. GLOMP>   
"Pigtailed girl!"   
"ACK! Hot water quick!"   
Akane poured hot water over them.   
"Sorry" said Kuno as he let go, looking horrified.   
"Life is certainly going to be different"Akane stated.   
"Will it really, Akane?" asked Kasumi.   
A month later, life was different . . .and less profitable. Nabiki Tendo was mad. She was extremely mad and when Nabiki was mad, someone paid. Usually Ranma.   
A certain sword-wielding samurai type had turned out to have a brain. And not only did he have a brain, he had a deluxe model. She had lost half her profits because she couldn't sell pictures of Akane and Ranma to him. And not only that, he had managed to steal half her customers too. Which made her short on funds and she hated being short on funds. Why did he need any more money anyway?   
Nabiki spent a lot of time trying to splash Kuno with cold water, but, just as Ranma had an uncanny ability to attract cold water, Kuno had an equally uncanny ability to avoid it which he enhanced in many ways. He had numerous umbrella gadgets and unusually quick reflexes to avoid cold water.   
He had also hit upon the idea of charging Ranma for the use of hot water. Kuno always had a thermos handy and he often managed to get Ranma to buy the use by asking a certain old lady if she would mind watering her sidewalk at a fixed time every day.   
But, Nabiki reflected, there was hope. Because, with his newly found intelligence, Kuno was having much more success with members of the fairer sex. His sudden ability to not only dress normally but dress well, and his highly improved athletic prowess netted him most of what had formerly been The Ranma Saotome Fan Club. The reason for this was simple. Ranma was quite clearly taken in several ways and no one wanted to go up against any of the Four Fiancées. Kuno was not.   
He had acquired an interesting nickname among these girls. It was the English letters TDH which stood for Tall, Dark and Handsome. Nabiki thought they should have added a W or an R in there or at least something to mention the money.   
If she could get pictures of Kuno, she could regain her lost profits. And there was something of poetic justice to this idea. She grinned wickedly and continued on her back route to the Kuno mansion.   
When she reached it, she stopped in surprise. Kodachi was standing by the alligator pond saying goodbye to Midorigame. Kuno, in his kendo outfit, and some other men stood behind her waiting.   
Kodachi stroked the alligator.   
"You know I have to go away. I'm going to get some new training. It's for one's mind. Then I can finally have Ranma-sama. I'll be back though, don't worry. It's just for a little while."   
"Miss Kuno?"   
"Yes, I'm coming." Kodachi got up and walked with the men into the house. One stayed behind.   
"And she will be treated well and taken care of?" asked Kuno.   
"Certainly, Mr. Kuno, we have the best facilities." There was something in the man's tone that made even Nabiki cringe and Kuno must have heard it too.   
"Good" he said pleasantly, "because if she isn't, I'll slap a lawsuit on you so big that you'll end up walking out of the courtroom without a cent or stitch to your name. And that's along with the severe injuries I will inflict. After all, she is my only little sister."   
The man gulped and departed.   
Very calmly, Kuno pulled out his bokken and began to practice. Nabiki climbed a tree and began to photograph. Those lessons from Gosungkugi had come in handy. And she considered, Kuno-baby really was pretty good at it. He wasn't as good as Ranma, but then, that was kind of an unfair comparison. No one was as good as Ranma.   
The next day, Nabiki managed to make up a whole lot of profits from girls who sighed, swooned and paid up.   
After that, life settled into a sort of rivalrous routine. There were now two networks in Furinkan. Nabiki still had trouble dealing with this. After having made fun of Kuno for so long, it was hard to conceptualize his ability as a moneymaker. But then, the Kuno money had to come from somewhere.   
Kuno's teachers were pleased and amazed, and yet, there were still some things about Kuno that were reminiscent. He still tended to address people by both of their names, he still called himself the Blue Thunder although it meant something different, and when emphasizing a particular point i.e. while chastising someone for not paying up, he did use Shakespeare.   
Kuno, for his part, was being a bit selfish in thinking only of himself, but it was understandable. He was desperately trying to make up for years of being "Blue Blunder." It wasn't only at school that he was making profits, the Kuno fortune had nearly doubled in size since that trip to the hotsprings. He had sent Kodachi off to be treated which lifted an enormous amount of stress off him. And carrying that thermos around had been a godsend. He had figured out a way to rig it so that if he were splashed, it would spray him with hot water before he could turn into a blithering idiot. There had been a few lapses in which case he had quickly freed Ranma or Akane from their current debt to make up for it.   
This is one sort of example of how he managed to steal customers from Nabiki. He tended to use the guilt or passive-aggressive factor. He didn't intimidate people but simply made it clear that he was very disappointed in them and sometimes a sad-faced lecture was infinitely worse than a threat of greater debt.   
Ultimately, like Nabiki, Tatewaki Kuno was good hearted and it bothered him that Nabiki was being polite to him. This meant there was something wrong. He realized that he had been so obsessed with erasing his former reputation that he had forgotten why Nabiki went after so much money in the first place. He knew the Tendos were not exactly wealthy and that Nabiki's profits often paid bills. He knew he couldn't just offer money. There had to be a way to help without looking like he was helping. The solution presented itself when he was looking in a closet for a ledger he had accidentally thrown in. He rummaged past pictures of Akane and Ranma cringing in embarrassment remembering when he tripped over a broken bokken and landed hard on something pointy which hit him directly in the stomach.   
"Owwwww! Kuso!" Kuno picked up the object that had stabbed him. It was a little blue samurai action figure holding a sword in attack position.   
"Defeated by a plastic figure. I have to practice more" said Kuno dryly placing the figure on his dresser where it remained for a week.   
Kuno was doing figures when he had a sudden urge to look up at the little samurai. And then he remembered where he'd gotten it.   


~flashback~Tatchi was going to be a millionaire when he grew up. They got to do whatever they wanted. They could even eat ice cream every day. He considered this looking at the peppermint ice cream Mother had given him. He looked around and noticed a little girl, her hair done in two ponytails looking down at the ice cream she had just dropped. She looked up.   
"What?!" she snapped.   
"Nothing" said Tatchi shrinking back a little. She looked at him speculatively.   
"You haven't touched that have you?"   
"No" he shook his head. And then he remembered. You became a millionaire by making people give you money so that they could get something you had that they wanted. Tatchi didn't particularly need money, though. At least not now.   
"If I gave you this, what would you give me?" he asked just as the little girl seemed about to speak.   
She smiled a smile that meant back in a sec and ran off. She entered the sandbox where a little girl with short blueblack hair and a sunhat was playing with something. She snatched the toy from the sunhat girl who hit her and then seemed satisfied and wen t back to playing.   
"Here" she said opening her fist. Tatchi looked. It was a figure of a samurai with a sword. Tatchi liked that. They had figures at home, but he wasn't allowed to play with them.   
"OK," he said handing over the ice cream.   
The girl smiled.   
"What's your name?" she asked licking the ice cream.   
"I'm Tatewaki Kuno, age five," Tatchi responded, "but Mother and Father call me Tatchi," he made a face, "who are you?"   
"I'm Nabiki Tendo. I'm five, too." ~end flashback~   


"Master Kuno?"   
"Yes, Sasuke?"   
"Nabiki Tendo would like to see you"   
"I'll be there in a minute" That was it. Kuno smiled. He had the solution. 

Nabiki was mad again. Kuno stepped into the room. She still wasn't used to Kuno's intelligence and it took her a little while to realize he was there.   
"Nabiki Tendo. How fortuitous. I did wish to speak with you as well."   
"Yes" Nabiki snapped "About your stealing all my customers. You don't even need the money, what the hell do you think you're doing?"   
"Is it wrong to wish one's own idiocy obliterated? Actually, I have a business proposition for you."   
"Oh?"   
"I seem to recall that there was a time when we worked together and it was most profitable. Perhaps such a venture would be even more so now."   
"I don't think that's ever been the case, Kuno-baby and I don't like sharing"   
"Here, take a look at this. Maybe it will help you remember."   
He handed her something. Nabiki looked down at it. It was a little blue samurai action figure.   
"What the hell is this? I'm too old for dolls, and this isn't my style."   
"True, it is more suitable to the fair Akane, and yet, it was through your hands that I received it"   
A slow smile spread across her face because she did remember. She remembered one day before her mother had died, before they'd even known she was sick.   


~flashback~Nabiki and Tatchi looked at each other shyly.   
"Oh, don't worry, Kimiko-san, she'll be perfectly safe here. You just go and do whatever you need to."   
"Thank you, Masako-san. Now, Nabiki, you be good and I'll be back in a few hours"   
"All right already okaa-san" said Nabiki.   
"Come on in dear"   
Nabiki and Tatchi entered the house.   
"Your house is really big!"   
"That's because Father has lots of yen. When I grow up, I'm going to have lots of yen, too."   
"We don't have a lot, but I will when I grow up"   
"Now you two run along and play. I have to go find Dachi. She's run away again."   
"Who's Dachi?" asked Nabiki.   
Tatchi grimaced. "She's my little sister. Her real name is Kodachi. She runs away a lot."   
"Oh" said Nabiki, "I have a little sister too. Her name is Akane."   
Tatchi pushed open a big oak Western door.   
"This is Father's office. He sits here and talks on the phone a lot"   
Nabiki looked around the office. It was as big as the whole dojo. There was a large desk in the center with a telephone on it. There were pens and pencils in a big cup and paper. There was a newspaper on the desk.   
"I think that's how you make yen, you invest in something called stocks," Tatchi continued.   
"I bet we could do it," said Nabiki.   
Tatchi's eyes grew wide. "Do you really think so?"   
"Of course," said Nabiki, she grabbed Tatchi's hand, "Come on." The two children scurried behind the desk and climbed up into the chair. It was big enough for both of them because Tatchi was a bit slight for his age in contrast with the tall seventeen year old he would become. They looked at the newspaper and the section it was open to. Both of them were precocious readers and they quickly figured out that it was the stock exchange.   
"We could invest" said Nabiki.   
"We could!" said Tatchi bouncing excitedly, his blue eyes shining. He touched a button on the phone and immediately a dial tone filled the room. He pressed another button and the sounds continued on speed dial, nee?> A phone rang several times on the other end until a deep male voice answered.   
"Yes, Kuno-san?"   
Nabiki nudged Tatchi who deepened his voice as best he could and replied "I've decided to invest in some new stocks"   
"Of course, Kuno-san. Now which stocks would those be?" The idiocy of the man in not recognizing a five year old voice was to prove a good thing in the long run.   
Tatchi looked down at the paper. "AT&T"   
"Is that all?"   
Nabiki pointed at another set of letters.   
"Microsoft, uh. . .Pentium"   
On they went, alternating, choosing names that they liked the sound of. The names they chose indicated their business savvy even at the age of five becuase the names that sounded good to them also sounded good to many other investors and in the ensuing years, the stocks that two five year olds had chosen skyrocketed.   
"Thank you, Kuno-san, I'll get right on that" and the man hung up.   
Tatchi and Nabiki looked at each other, delighted.   
"We did it. We're businesspeople!" Tatchi laughed.   
"We work really well together. We should work together when we grow up, I bet we'd make twice as much" said Nabiki. ~end flashback~   


Nabiki looked up from the samurai figure straight into a a pair of blue eyes as shrewd as her own.   
"OK, Tatchi, judging by your current fortune, I accept."   
She held out her hand and they shook on it.   
A month later . . .   
Kuno dropped a stack of yen on Nabiki's desk "Here are the profits for this week, those photos of Ranma should sell well to those girls in Homeroom E. And those ones of me, I won't forgive you for that, that was just sneaky but they did make a good profit."   
Nabiki smiled "Well, you left yourself wide open, Kuno-baby" She rifled through the yen with satisfaction. "If we keep going like this, we'll have to eventually get some legit businesses."   
Kuno shrugged "Maybe the next time I decided to shipwreck my yacht, I shall purloin thy camera. Thou art as fair as Akane and I'm sure there are plenty who would pay good money for you, Nabiki Tendo."   
She hit him with her economics textbook.   
"That hurt, you know"   
Nabiki smirked. "I meant it too. Later, Kuno-baby."   
Nabiki walked home happily that day. She had made a decent profit and the bills would be paid. There were plenty of things to be happy about and- she stopped. Had Kuno actually been complimenting her in his strange way? She shook herself. This was Tatewaki Kuno. She would not, would not think about him like that.   
Kuno strode home after kendo, bokken held briskly over his shoulder, blue eyes aflame. That really had been a good practice. He'd really proved he was a decent martial artist and that Blue Blunder was gradually being left behind. He considered. Too bad Nabiki hadn't thought of photographing that one, that would have been profitable. He pictured her smirk as she placed the yen on the desk, brown eyes sparking with intelligence and wit and . . .he shook himself. He would not, would not think about that mercenary harpy, business partner though she may have been like that.   
Famous last words.   
  
Six months later . . .   
In the oak office, Kuno and Nabiki were again sitting in the large chair. This time they fit because Nabiki was using Kuno as an extra sort of chair.   
"What should we do tonight, Nabiki?"   
"The same thing we do every night, Tatchi, try to take over the world."   
THE END 

  
  



End file.
